Microsoft Teams Phone Agents bring conversational AI to Auto Attendants and Call Queues, helping organizations automate common requests and improve call routing. Explore its features, licensing requirements, and practical applications for smarter business communications.
Introduction
On June 15, 2026, Microsoft added some artificial intelligence capabilities to Teams Phone. They have introduced Teams Phone Agents. The agents are currently part of Microsoft’s early AI Frontier Public Preview program. Microsoft is constantly adding features to Teams Phone Agents and has not provided, as of September 2026, a date for general availability.
There are several tools currently available in the agents:
- Q&A Tool.
- Appointments Tool.
- Agents & Queue Tool.
- Spam Detection.
- Historical Reporting.
- Automatic Recording.
- Power Automate Integration
- Custom Voice Agents created through Copilot Studio.
These tools enhance the capabilities of Teams Auto Attendants. In some cases, they are outright adding new features while in others they are doing things the Auto Attendants can currently do, just simpler and more efficiently. Teams Phone Agents are not replacing Auto Attendants, they are augmenting them.
In this article, we’ll provide a taste of what these tools can do and how they can be used by your organization to improve your Auto Attendants. Please just keep in mind that Teams Phone Agents are in preview, you can use them for testing but be mindful before placing them into production.
Licensing
If you have Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing in your tenant, you can sign up for the program. To leverage Teams Phone Agents you will need the requisite licenses to use Teams Auto Attendants:
- Teams Phone Licensing
- Teams Phone Resource Account Licensing
- PSTN Connectivity: Calling Plans, Operator Connect or Direct Routing
Native Teams Phone Agent capabilities such as Q&A, Appointments, Agents and Queues, and Spam Detection are included as Teams Phone Agent features. Organizations only need Copilot Studio licensing and consumption funding when extending Teams Phone Agent with custom Copilot Studio voice agents. Power Automate and Teams Premium licensing may also be required.
Please bear in mind that the pricing and consumption billing models may change when these features progress into general availability.
Questions & Answers Tool
You certainly can configure “frequently asked question (FAQ)” functionality into an Auto Attendant….but it will require some patience to set it up and more to keep it current! The Question and Answers tool provides an easier way to handle common requests such as office hours, directions, event schedules, lunch menus for schools, etc. They can be used to provide answers to technical questions about how to reset passwords, provide general benefits information and potentially replace other self-service tasks. Complex questions can still be passed on to your employees.
Appointments Tool
As the name implies, this tool can allow callers to:
- Make appointments.
- Hear their upcoming appointments.
- Update an appointment.
- Delete and appointment.
It requires a Shared Booking in Microsoft Bookings or an organization’s third-party appointment scheduling system can be integrated through Application Programming Interface (API) endpoints. Microsoft recommends using Power Automate as the go between your booking system and the Teams Phone Agent.
Agents & Queues
This tool can truly make your Auto Attendants smarter! Instead of listening to a County Government’s menu like:
Press 1 for Permits.
Press 2 for Trash Pickup.
Press 3 for County Parks.
A caller could simply say:
“Do I need a permit to put a shed in my backyard?”
The Teams Phone Agent will then route the call to the residential permitting department not just the general permitting Call Queue!
Setting up multi-lingual Auto Attendants is not fun! I’ve done it! With this tool, if the caller starts speaking Spanish, French, Italian, etc. the call can be routed to an agent or queue with users who can speak the caller’s language.
The “Agent and Call Queues” tool require licensing for Copilot Studio to create the agents. Consumption billing also comes into play when using this tool.
Spam Detection
This tool can be used to detect if a call is spam. You can create one or more templates to determine if and how a spam call is handled. Spam calls can be:
- Disconnected.
- Transferred to the Auto Attendant’s operator.
- Transferred to some other call target.
This feature can currently only be configured in PowerShell version 7.9.1-preview or later. In PowerShell you would create the template and then assign it to the Auto Attendant.
Call Recording
This feature allows Teams Administrators to setup automatic recording and transcription of inbound Teams Phone Agent and Call Queue calls.
- Recordings and transcriptions are saved to a SharePoint site.
- This requires that the relevant Teams administrators also be SharePoint Site Administrators.
- Recording can be enabled on a per Phone Agent or Call Queue basis.
- All inbound calls to a Call Queue are recorded.
- For compliance recording, agents do not need a compliance recording policy to be assigned to them.
- If you want to record outbound calls, the users must have a policy assigned to them.
- Teams must be integrated with a Compliance Recording partner for Call Queue compliance recording.
- The Queues app is required, which requires a Teams Premium license
Shared Call History
Shared Call History is a feature of Teams Auto Attendants and Call Queues. It provides insight into what happened to a call after an AI interaction. It is more of a supporting capability for Auto Attendants and Call Queues. This also requires access to the Queues app.
For Call Queues, it improves how a call into a queue is handled by the agents. It can track when an agent takes a call and marks it “In Progress” and later marks it as “Resolved”. It helps to make clear how voicemails are handled for Auto Attendants and Call Queues.
- For a school, it can show that a voicemail left for the “Attendance line” has or has not been addressed.
- On a service desk it can show that the Teams Phone Agent triaged the call and sent it to the correct queue. Engineers can then track who the owner of the call is and whether it has been resolved.
Shared Call History provides more “Contact Center like” features to Teams Auto Attendant and Call Queues.
Power Automate Integration
Integration with Power Automate can turn Teams Phone Agent into a business process automation platform. It is like steroids for the Teams Phone Agents. Going back to a helpdesk scenario, Power Automate integration can:
- Get the caller’s identity.
- If the caller says, “I can’t print”, it can determine that the user needs help.
- Start a Power Automate workflow.
- Open a ticket.
- Advise the helpdesk.
- Route the call to the appropriate agent.
You must have some sort of Power Automate licensing but Microsoft does not provide any specifics.
Custom Voice Agents
These can go beyond the basic Teams Phone Agent capabilities of Q&A, appointments, queue routing and spam detection. They can allow the creation of business logic and integrations specific to the organization. These can be built and used for:
- Accounts Receivable: “I want to pay my bill.”
- Sales: “Has my order shipped?”
- Support Desk: “My laptop isn’t working.”
- Higher Education: “What are the admission requirements for the Dental Hygienist program?”
Teams Phone Agents are best used for call handling and routing. Custom voice agents are for when you want to fire off a business process, or the caller needs to interact with your company’s data and systems.
Teams Phone Agents get callers to the right destination while voice agents help them get what they need done before even speaking to a living, breathing person!
Custom voice agents require Copilot Studio licensing and consumption billing.
Summary
Artificial Intelligence is now arriving in Teams Phones. Teams Phone Agents have the potential to make your Call Flows, Auto Attendants and Call Queues, smarter, easier to configure and less complex. They will also provide spam protection and will allow callers to get the information they need faster and more directly. Your employees will not be bogged down answering repetitive questions about your office hours or what’s for lunch this week. These features are currently in the Frontier preview and can be used for testing and to prepare for when they are released.
eGroup is available and ready to answer any questions that you might have about Microsoft Teams, Teams Phone Agents, Copilot and Power Automate. If you need help with implementing or migrating to Microsoft Teams, Copilot or Power Automate, please reach out to us.
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